FIA Urges Greater Information Sharing in Letter to ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi

Since its inception, ITER has been a marker for global scientific collaboration through fusion energy. The process of building and designing ITER has helped train generations of scientists, engineers, and specialists worldwide in cross-cutting fields enabling fusion science. The organization’s impact on showing the fusion ecosystem that it can build big things is important. Today, however, a new momentum is building – within and around the private fusion industry. Over $7 billion has now been invested in private fusion companies. Public-private partnerships are moving ahead, national strategies are launching, international partnerships are forming, regulatory activity is advancing. ITER’s role should evolve in this new fusion energy economy.

On July 29, the FIA sent a letter to ITER Director-General Pietro Barabaschi urging greater information sharing and collaboration with the private sector. The letter follows the private-public workshop held in May, where over 300 attendees gathered to discuss strategies for ITER to share its lessons learned with the accelerating industry. The letter underscores the need for urgency and areas of information sharing that FIA believes would be most beneficial – materials & tech expertise, workforce sharing & cross-training, and external stakeholder engagement.

The time for collaboration is now. The fusion ecosystem is evolving into a multi-polar world, in which peer institutions and facilities work together and share information to accelerate fusion commercialization. If ITER wants to expand its role and directly contribute to achieving commercial fusion power, it needs to act with urgency. By becoming an important partner for collaboration and disseminating lessons learned, ITER can position itself – not only as a leader in scientific partnerships – but a leader in enabling fusion commercialization.

Read the full letter below.